


When you go beyond meaning

by littletechiebird



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 18:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littletechiebird/pseuds/littletechiebird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Request: When freckles have a different cause or meaning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When you go beyond meaning

They had been laying there a while. He would have checked his watch, but he didn’t want to move to disturb the other that laid beside him. In stead, he was spending his time practically studying the features of the sleeping face before him. He’d made plenty of jokes before about the little colored marks that danced across his nose and cheeks, but maybe that was because he’d found the very feature so endearing. Maybe it was because he knew every possible meaning that they could have - good and bad. Maybe it was because he was worried, or maybe because he liked them that much. 

He’d come to find that the little spots even had settled sparingly on his shoulders, his arms, his calves. He’d come to watch and wait for the occasional moments where he’d catch a glance and discover one of the little marks that he was sure he had not seen before. It would bring a flush to his cheeks, and somehow would give a little spark of pleasure or pride at finding it. Like learning a new secret. It was weird, and for a while he had questioned himself at such a thing. He was pretty sure it was called a fetish. It wasn’t something he could help, just like he couldn’t help the warmth that rose to his cheeks, even in the slightest, each time he thought of it. 

The dark haired boy had never said a word about it, though he was pretty sure the freckled boy had long figured it out. That was fine, it was their secret - a secret of appreciation.

“…Rob?”

The groggy murmur as eyes cracked open to reveal bright emeralds that were                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         previously hidden away. His own face was a blank slate, though this time there was no mask, no shades, nothing to hide any aspect of his features. But he was just as unreadable as ever, just as he meant to be. It was what he was good at, and it was his best guard. He didn’t need to be on guard with Wally, but he was always shutting his very self off from everyone. His thoughts, his feelings. He knew there was still only a fraction of a weakness hidden within his eyes. That fraction was like a neon sign to the speedster. 

“What-”

But Dick moved quickly, shifting from his position beside Wally to hovering above him, sitting back on his thighs, one hand on his upper arm as the other came to rest on his cheek, thumb brushing over the milkyway of freckles that ran over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. 

“They have several meanings, you know. Probably countless when you get down to the individual beliefs of each person who takes notice and thought to them.”

He had decided to be worried - or, rather, that he already had been.

“So many people believe they can kill you. They’re wrong though, you know. Well, that preexisting marks can become cancerous. Though they are associated with at least two different types of cancer. So some people are scared of them because of that rare possibility of death - even though it comes only with the neglect of care to yourself, and even then, it doesn’t happen to everyone who doesn’t put on sunscreen..”

It was clear that the male, now beneath him, was confused, if not a bit worried. He had identified this pattern with him a while ago. Each time he would become attached to someone, or something, he would have a moment of panic that that person, or thing, would be ripped away too. Just like his parents had been. His mind had become a terrible torture in that way, and his knowledge from the education he was provided, and then some from being a bat, did not help the case. 

“Then there’s the dream interpretation. For a woman, if she dreams about them  on someone else’s face, it’s said that she’ll lose her lover. Or maybe that supposedly good events are just disasters in disguise. Of course, those are the more negative and uncommon beliefs for the dreams on them. There’s also the accepted belief that if someone dreams of them, that they will be increasingly popular with the opposite sex.”

His brows knitted together, and his blank expression was cracking, his worry shining through more prominently. But Wally was listening patiently, allowing him to go on. He just watched him, laying still, waiting for him to continue. “And?”

“And then there are those who just dismiss them as a simple symbol that they’ve created for themselves. Like calling them “kisses from the sun”, or calling the person “sun kissed”. Beyond that, they just associate it with someone being “Ginger”, or being Irish.”

But Wally knew he wasn’t done, so he pressed him again. “So?”  
  
“So there’s no real meaning for them, beyond the scientific explanation. Well, no single one that is completely accepted besides that which explains their creation through science. Just.. a cluster of melanin, and thus is triggered by added exposure to sunlight.”

This time, he watched Wally smirk a bit. “What’s your point? Anything can be good and bad, Rob. You said yourself that the possibility of dying from them is pretty much zero - and I wear my sunscreen when I go to the beach and stuff anyways. We  _already know_  that I’m super popular with the ladies. I mean, come on. You can’t blame them. And I don’t just have the freckles workin’ it for me. But that’s not a problem anyway.” He was grinning and shrugged a bit, just about as much as he could manage while laying on the couch with little wiggle room. “If I’m “sun kissed”, then that’s about as close as I’m gonna get to getting tan since I’m a “Ginger” and have no soul, and blah, blah, blah.” He rolled his eyes, smirk still comfortably in place. 

“As for the science stuff, you know I’m all for it, but we already knew that anyway and it isn’t a big deal. All this time you’ve been talking about what everyone else believes, and making yourself think through every possible crazy thing that could fry your nerves and make you worry.” His hand raised to place itself on Dick’s forearm, his head leaning into the touch that still lingered upon his face. “So what is it that you think my freckles mean then?” 

He was quiet for a while, and the silence almost seemed odd and foreign as he made Wally wait for his answer. They had been filling up so much of it, and now it was quite concrete, though not uncomfortable. It just left him to find his answer. But that wasn’t so hard. He’d thought about it before, and found it fit - or that he wanted it to. He wanted to make sure that could be a truth - for Wally.

“The more freckles a person has, the more memories they have that are important to them.. That make them happy.”

A grin split onto his features, though it was simply gentle and genuinely happy - the very look that always made Dick’s heart skip for it was just what he wanted to make him feel. In return, a weary smile was all he could manage before he was brought closer for their foreheads to touch and their lips to brush.

“You’re getting sappy on me.”


End file.
